Communist Party of China Sick and Tired of You Bringing Up the Chinese Constitution

From the Office of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

Dear citizens of China,

Since the Southern Weekly incident began, we have seen, and subsequently deleted, an inordinate amount of references to the Chinese Constitution, specifically Article 35 which reads: “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.”

Frankly, we are sick and tired of you bringing up the Chinese Constitution every time we violate one of its edicts. Don’t you think we know what’s in there? We wrote the thing for Christ’s sake.

Not to mention, many of you are quoting this part that protects basic human freedoms completely out of context. You don’t explain that the Constitution is chock-full of unkept promises like this one.

If you close your eyes and point to a random line in the Constitution, 9 times out of 10 you’re going to hit an empty platitude or outright fabrication. Here, let’s try it together.

What did you get? We got part of Article 5: “All acts in violation of the Constitution and the law must be investigated. No organization or individual may enjoy the privilege of being above the Constitution and the law.”

See?

Best two out of three: “Article 41. Citizens of the People’s Republic of China have the right to criticize and make suggestions to any state organ or functionary.”

That’s one of our favorites. It goes on: “No one may suppress such complaints, charges and exposures, or retaliate against the citizens making them.” Stop, stop, our stomachs hurt.

So the next time you plan on cherry-picking quotes from this antiquated document to make us look bad, think of Godwin’s Law—but instead of Hitler or Nazis, the first person to bring up the Chinese Constitution in a discussion automatically loses.

Honestly, if you had studied your history you’d know that the Chinese Constitution was never meant to be taken seriously. We don’t understand why you ever thought it was.

We don’t understand why you have to beat this dead horse every time we seize privately-owned land or interfere in a court case.